Bots : Steemit killer or a strategic use of time?

in #bots7 years ago (edited)

we would  be remiss if we claim that we do not know or feel the effects of bots in steemit and in other  social media sites. In fact, as steemians, we see it in action for example against plagiarism (I am sure you all remember @cheetah and @steemcleaners et al ), up voting / down voting ( @booster , @banjo , @minnowsupport et al ) , posting and yes even commenting.  

Pic source 

For example, when I replied to some of @frystikken posts I do get some weird response and thought that he was out of his mind-however I  continued respectfully. This response continued for hours until I later figured out that I was actually chatting with a bot ( @frystikken smart guy indeed haha  😂😂😂) 


 

 and have to end the long conversation.

Moreover, I noticed that @blueorgy has a bot that informs him when his attention is needed and  I even have a bot that takes care of me after using the toilet and sings good night songs for me while I sleep   (haha just kidding 😂😂😂 ). 

 

 

                             Bots : Steemit killer or a strategic use of time?


Some steemians examples , @beanz and @demotruk , @personz  , @bitgeek , @kyriacos  , @stellabelle  and @heretickitten  have written  and commented about this subject in an objective way and  without a solid outcome to supporting that bots are always good  :It seems self-evident that on a social network, no one can have a meaningful connection with a bot (unless the bot is extremely humanlike, but even then...  ). 


Additionally, @ozchartart  through innovation has a bot that writes contents (even though not perfectly creative)  and @renzoarg  even perfected a bot further in content creation just to show the power of innovation- see post about it here : Is It Plagiarism Or Is It Innovative? - A bot written article (by LAURA) 


Even though the advantages of these bots are visible , its disadvantages , however , cannot be denied. Examples


  1. A bot cannot replace real users at steemit, in fact its mass adoption at steemit will render this platform too mechanical and uninteresting which will have a negative effect.
  2.  Yes bots can help us combat plagiarism and mass self upvoting, however they can also be used to spread spams like virus across the Platform.
  3. Bots can lead to less engagement and sometimes unethical upvoting especially when people upvotes (via bots ) without even reading the authors post which might not be the case when they actually read the post. This can even affect steemit negatively if there is mass adoption of voting bots leading to less engagement in the site –which is a disadvantage.


In conclusion, bots are good if used in a right way and should be encouraged. Reason is that steemit is an innovative platform and thus should encourage innovation. On the other hand, negative use of bots especially in mass self-up upvoting  (with many accounts ) , bullying other members via mass down voting , and spams should be discouraged. 


What do you guys think?

  • All bots are bad
  • Some bots are bad :please indicate which, example comment bots, up vote bots, flagging bots 
  •   Not all bots are essentially bad, i.e. I do not have a problem with any bots  

Send in your comment, Please resteem this for others to join and upvote to send your support.


We have a big issue in steemit with regards to  flagging of posts-pls read about it via my former post see link : Down voting : A Motivational Killer or A Strategic Use of Power?   and send in your comments

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Hi @charles1, I see you have mentioned me.
This is automatic bot response so that I may respond to your mention later.
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xD@blueorgy

Yes bot ..haha

My mention bot is more of an extension of myself rather then a full bot 🤔 And only reacts when called upon like my other bots.

Good point bot, I like you bot because you are like Casper the friendly ghost haha

You love to post controversial topics...I love it!

All bots aren't bad, but I do feel like there is a lot of abuse from bots today because there is basically no rules or regulation. The bad bots do drain the reward pool. Because there are no rules against it, they aren't technically doing anything wrong so more power to the bot creators for taking advantage of the rules today.

Good point, I agree. I enjoy topics too hence why I always check them out (interesting guy) .
I agree that we needs good bits here as its quite innovative. See your steem chat for a message from me. More success

I think the replies by bots speak for themselves LOL.

Certainly bots can be good. However, even good bots are more predictable than people and so I'm seeing bots built with good intentions often being gamed in ways that have a potentially negative impact on the community.

One example is a bot which upvotes comments and although the intention is to encourage engagement it winds up upvoting spam because the people creating the spam bots can easily work out where to spam in order to catch the bots votes. Similarly with bots like randowhale and whaleshares who can be triggered to upvote are sometimes found upvoting spam.

The trouble is that the solution is right there in front of us and nobody wants to use it. It's called a downvote although it is also known as the flag based on the UI it was given. If it costs money to combat bad bots then the developer of those bots should be contacted and asked to create ways to prevent potential damage by their own bots. Unfortunately humans often take criticism personally and offensively so that doesn't always go well.

Ideally the downvote would just be normalised but I've considered that we could be way passed getting the whole community to adopt that way of regulating rewards so that spam bots don't benefit too easily.

The downvoting drama of this week wouldn't have been realised for instance if those people were just downvoting arbitrarily on overvalued posts but instead they only do it when emotion calls for it it seems. So yeah, I think bots could be handled if people weren't so afraid of downvoting.

Very good point, I agree. Hopefully developers will see your commen and act accordingly

In addition to my last comment, feel free to join the conversation in my new post about future of steem...it will motivate you more about steem . More success to you.

great point!

It could be a nice experimental playground for AI ...

Good point, however it has its downside too.

Good point, I agree. thanks

I agree that there's good and bad bots !! I think there should be good bots up voting steem Ian's that have been here for a year now and have a lot of followers but are getting no money at all ! Like my last post , its the worst one yet , I have 1750 followers but it only has paid .63 cents after a year of blogging and supporting my fellow steemians , and most posts now only make a few dollars because we are only allowed 10 / 100% votes per day !!! So now no one up votes anymore , so all the hard work that we have put in to this platform and building it up , it seems we get no thanks for it !
so I would love it at this point to have bots up voting for me !! I don't right now and its very discouraging for many of us , I find a lot of the veterans are not even posting much anymore or up voting !! So im in favor of up vote bots if used properly , such as putting and picking steemians yourself to up vote who you want for example ! 👍👍👍🆙🆙🆙✔✔✔

This is because HF19 did way more harm than good, and created an environment where spam and circle jerks are almost incentivized. Engagement is WAY down since the hardfork, for anyone who isn't trying to game the system for profit, anyway.

I totally agree !! It needs to change , and soon !👍👍👍

This is why we built https://SteemThat.com
Some People Disagree With Bots But To High Quality Content Writers Get A Little Boost They Are Needed.

Haha, I am thus your up votting bot haha. Good one, I agree.
You desrve more and will get more ...say amen to that!!!! bless you and I wish you a blessed weekend.

Haha ! Thanks ! If you ever decide to start up a upvote bot think of me !!! Haha and will do the same for you my friend ! Have a good weekend !!👍👍👍✔✔✔

@charles1 I see bots as useful and viable only as "helping tools." Cheetah is great, so is steemcleaners, twitterbot and a few others. If the AI could be developed sufficiently, a "helpbot" might be useful too.

I also see bots as potentially "useful" to active curators in terms of identifying noteworthy content to be manually curated by real human beings later on.

THAT SAID Steemit is trying to build itself as a community. A group of automation doesn't make a community, PEOPLE do. I realize Steemit-- as a venue-- skews heavy in the direction of developers and techies... but in all fairness, a bunch of algorithms sitting around "talking to each other" is not a community. In that sense, an overemphasis on bots would be an epic FAIL. Why? Pretty much for the same reason I slam down the phone in a rage when I call my bank and can't get to a REAL PERSON after 30 minutes of pressing buttons and getting "For instructions on paying your mortgage in Urdu, please press 17 now" over and over.

Very good point, I agree. I sincerly hope for more human intereaction here. Following you in order to stay in touch. Wish you a blessed weekend. Thanks for your comment

well said. yea i hate that i cant get to a person. its frustrating. i just press 0's until i am able to hold 30 mins for a real person.

Not sure if you were referencing my @helpbot or not but that's exactly what I'm trying to do on that one.

For sure I see nothing helpful with bots that participate in the voting system. In my opinion this is cheating the system. Popular Steemit posts should be made popular by the people, this ensures quality (at least the quality the Steemit community wants). Upvoting with bots makes it possible that we see a lot of low quality posts up in the hot and trending posts, which I think nobody here wants.

Bots that detect plagiarism (which I think can be quite precise) are great!
Plagiarism is unfair to the people who are really dedicated and spend time writing their posts.

I think I can say that the 'referee-bots' are a good thing, the 'cheat-bots' not so much.

I like the discussion, keep it up!

I completely agree with you. I think it should be beneficial if Steemit banned upvoting bots. They are a way for spammers to game the system and I have already noticed there are things posted that remind me of junk trying to plug products that I would delete from my email as spam and they are upvoted, probably because the spammer paid a bot.

Great comment and point @tappit
I concur...bots that upvote are bad for the community in the long run as good contents is sacrificed.. Someone can just snap a dog poo and post knowing he has over 100 programmed upvote...and you see them in hot!

Good point, I agree. @cheetah is doing great isnit it? @banjo acts like a drunk buddy haha . Thanks for your comment

You want to find some weird chat bots?? Go to the Yahoo comments section. LOL

haha , thanks bot..will do

In addition to my last comment, feel free to join the conversation in my new post about future of steem...it will motivate you more about steem . More success to you.

Upvotes should be strictly done by users. Everything else so far I think bots can be a great addition to the platform. But upvoting with a bot is just wrong.

I agree 100%

Good point, thanks for your comment

Nice article but very sensitive. Your right human interactions can never be the Sam with bot. In my opinion, I think that the use of bots should be limited to few functions in this platform while many activities should be done by human beings so that there will be human face. Good work. Keep it coming.upvoted

welcome, I agree. However, bots are here to stay.

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